This study assessed patterns of grief reactions and their adaptiveness, among bereaved parents, who had lost an adult child during military service. The prevalence of the various reactions and their associations with psychosocial adjustment and risk-related factors were examined. Eighty-five bereaved parents filled out a battery of questionnaires 2.5 years after their loss. Type of grief reaction (absence, delayed, prolonged, and resolved) was identified utilizing the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief (TIG). In addition, psychiatric symptomatology, psychosocial functioning, and sociodemographic background were examined. Results indicated that prolonged grief reactions and absence of grief were the most prevalent variants. Absent and delayed grief reactions were associated with lower levels of psychosocial adjustment compared with prolonged grief reaction. Level of education, religious attitudes, and the circumstances of the loss were associated with the type of grief reaction. The findings of this study demonstrate the complexity of defining certain reactions as complicated. The identification of absence of grief and delayed grief reactions as being complicated is supported, but the inclusion of prolonged grief reaction as a complicated maladaptive reaction should be reconsidered.

This study examines the relationship between marital quality and global well-being among husbands and wives in enduring marriages in Israel. Fifty-one couples married for at least 40 years answered both itemized questions about the components of their marriage and global questions about their marital satisfaction. The findings indicate that, while the husbands' marital satisfaction was dependant largely on the content of the marital relationship and not related to their general well-being, the wives' marital satisfaction was affected by both the content of their marriage and their global well-being and, moreover, contributed to their well-being. These findings are consistent with Bernard's (1972) contention that marital quality is more important to wives' mental health than to husbands'. Like other findings on the relationship between marital quality and global well-being, however, these findings are cohortspecific, since the relationship depends on the context in which the marriage takes place.

This article presents a typology of enduring marriages of Israeli couples married for at least 40 years. Based on the view that marital quality is a multidimensional phenomenon, the typology is derived from a cluster analysis of responses of husbands and wives in 51 couples to the ENRICH scale items. Three types of enduring marriages were found: vitalized, satisfactory, and conflictual. Vitalized marriages were characterized by high scores on both the intrinsic (e.g., mutual acceptance, communication, conflict resolution) and extrinsic (e.g., financial management, relations with relatives and friends) aspects of marriage. Satisfactory marriages were characterized by lower scores on the intrinsic aspects but relatively high scores on the extrinsic ones. Conflictual marriages were characterized by difficulties in both aspects. Some clinical implications are suggested and further quantitative studies of enduring marriages are urged.

This study evaluates various aspects of group work with bereaved parents who lost a child during military service. More specifically, it assesses the unique and cumulative contributions of various features of group work to the participants' satisfaction with the group support. One hundred and thirty-eight bereaved parents, who participated in 16 support groups, answered a battery of questionnaires tapping 3 aspects of the group work: their motives for joining the group, the interpersonal relations among the group members, and the group leadership style. In addition, the participants were asked to evaluate the contribution of the intervention to their adjustment. The findings indicate that the supportive elements of the intervention were associated with the groups' perceived contribution. The clinical implications of these results are discussed.

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